Today on Summit Life, Pastor JD Greer talks about patience. God, sometimes we pray for relief and what God is doing is refining because His highest value in us is our trust and our satisfaction with Him and a possession of a character like His. And He often uses pain and struggle to produce that in us. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer.
I'm your host, Molly Vittovich, and we're so glad that you're with us today. Have you ever taken a shortcut in life? Maybe you were, you know, just a few points away from passing a class so you cheated on the final, or you wanted a new car so badly that you took out a loan that you couldn't afford. We've all made these little compromises and believing that they'd bring us a better life now to help us get ahead. But today, Pastor JD explains that God's timing is always the best timing, and there's no way to rush His plans.
We are in a new teaching series called Search for a King, and if you missed the beginning yesterday, you can catch up at jdgreer.com. Pastor JD titled this message, patience. Today, we're going to see David deal with an issue that almost all of us have dealt with at some point.
In fact, many of you are dealing with it right now. That is when you're in a situation where things are not going like you thought they would go, and things are not going like you thought they should go. What do you do when you're in that place? I want to talk about a huge temptation that many of us fall into when we get into situations like that, and one that can completely derail what God is doing in our life. So many of us shall fall into this temptation, and that is to take matters into our own hands, to get ahead of God. All right, and so there's a tension between those two.
What should you be doing in that tension? That's a huge question in my life that you're going to see up here in David's here. First, Samuel 24 through chapter 26, Saul took 3,000 chosen men out of all Israel and went to see David and his men in front of the wild goat's rocks. David's just got a handful of guys with him, and Saul comes at him with 3,000 people.
And Saul came to the sheepfolds, by the way, when there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself, and David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave. It is very easy because of our desires to interpret our circumstances wrongly as being something in the will of God when it is not. I hear this in how people think about making decisions to spend money.
Like, you know, I wanted a flat screen TV, and then one went on sale at Best Buy, and that day I got a new credit card application in the mail. Seriously. Listen, here's the point. Our desires are not a good guide to the will of God.
All right? Circumstances are not a good guide to the will of God, because both those things can be so deceptive. The word of God is the only reliable guide to the will of God. Your passions and your circumstances can really lead you astray.
They really can, and make you justify things that are just not right. We need to know the word of God, and we need to let it rule our passions and interpret our circumstances. So David relents. Somewhere in the midst of this approach, he has a change of heart. And when Saul, he gets up close to Saul, and when Saul leans over to grab some toilet paper or something, David stealthily cuts off a corner of Saul's robe. He leans over, he holds his nose, verse 6. But he said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord, the Lord's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed. Even if Saul is wrong, he's saying, David is saying, this is God's appointed king, and these are God's appointed circumstances, and it's not for me to take matters into my own hands. He's like, I cannot violate the commands of God to accomplish the purposes of God in my life. So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. So Saul finishes up, flushes, goes out of the cave. It's called a royal flush, by the way. That's what I wrote over there in my Bible.
Sorry. Saul goes on his way a little way, down over a hill or two, and David comes out of the cave. And David comes out, and he calls after Saul, and he says, verse 8, my Lord the king. And Saul, you know, looks behind him. And David bows with his face to the earth and pays homage, and all the guys in his army are back there fanning themselves, you know, getting a breath after being in the cave. Verse 9, David says to Saul, why are you listening to the words of men who say, behold, David seeks your harm?
And he waves a little corner of his robe that he cut off. He's like, 10, verse 10, behold, this day your eyes are seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, I will not put out my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed. Verse 11, see my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For the fact, by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and didn't kill you, you should know that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I'm not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it. Verse 12, may the Lord judge between me and you, may the Lord avenge me against you, but my hand shall never touch you. Verse 13 is the proverb of the ancients, proverb of the ancients says, out of the wicked comes wickedness. By the way, the opposite of that proverb would be the ends justify the means. Let me show you what that means. Taking God, or excuse me, taking matters into your own hands looks like one of four things.
Here they are. Number one, revenge. Number two, stolen pleasure is a way that we take matters into our own hands.
Life hasn't turned out until you find escape and some stolen pleasure and you just feel justified in doing so. Here's your third thing, compromise. Compromise.
You got, you got revenge, you got stolen pleasure, you got compromise. This is the girl who says I'm tired of being single and I know God wants me to be happy. So I get together with this guy who's clearly not the kind of guy I should marry, but you know, it's going to be okay.
It's better than being single. So compromise is getting to the purposes of God by breaking the commands of God. Here is number four, getting ahead of God.
Number four, getting ahead of God. You force a career change. You manipulate circumstances.
You engage in self-promotion to make something happen. Waiting on God means waiting on him the way that that waiter at that really expensive restaurant waits on me. Meaning that the moment that he sees, the moment that he perceives that there is something that's an intention in my mind, he's ready to do it. What it means to wait on God is that you are so tuned to what he is wanting to do and so patient that you are going to act when he tells you until the full extent of when he tell you, but you're not going to get ahead of him. It's only by waiting on God and by pursuing God's purposes in God's ways with God's timing that you experience God's blessing. Guys, you got to learn to wait. This is one of the most important skills of the believer waiting. You got to wait on God because the biggest enemy to what God really wants to do in your life is you getting ahead of all of it and blowing it. You got to learn to wait. So here's a question. Where do you find the resources to wait? That's one thing. I mean, you know, one of our pastors told me every time I hear that marshmallow test, I feel guilty because I'm just totally marshmallow grabber.
And all my kids, as far as I can tell right now, are marshmallow grabbers. Um, where do you find the resources to wait? Well, you know, lucky for us, we have a psalm that David wrote where he told us that. So hold your place there in first table 24 flip over to Psalm 57 psalm 57. You notice the first part of psalm 57, the title, it says a mixed sum of David when he fled from song the cave. In other words, David wrote this psalm in first table 24.
This, this is the title. This is David's soundtrack to what he's going through. Be merciful to me, oh God, be merciful to me. He's pleading that God would help him out before he becomes king. For in you, my soul takes refuge and the shadow of your wings. I will take refuge till the storms and smells of destruction pass by. Verse two, I cry out to God most high, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will sin from heaven and save me. He will put the shame him who tramples me. Let me give you four words that characterize the patient heart. Okay, four words that characterize the patient's heart.
I'm going to pull them all out of here. Number one, sovereignty. Sovereignty, verse two. Verse two in the cave, David said God will fulfill his purpose for me.
I don't have to break God's commands to get to where God wants me to go. David doesn't know how God's going to do it, but he knows that he will do it. David knows that God will fulfill his purpose and nobody, nothing can stand in the way of that. David knows that God will give his best to those who leave the choices to him. Notice, by the way, also verse two, that David's prayer here is a mixture.
Do you see this? Of humble pleading and quiet trust. David's not just sitting around, you know, being like, well, God's predestined. I can't change it. I mean, no, David is asking God to change it. God changed this, please. I know you can change it, but after praying, he trusts in the sovereignty of God.
Here's, here's a second very important word. Number two, steadfast love, verse three. David is confident in God's steadfast love toward him. This is not just resolution to faith. It's a confidence that God is working all things in his life according to a loving plan.
The Muslims that I lived among in Southeast Asia used to have a belief they called tot deer. Tot deer is the idea that God has already kind of said everything and basically you and I are just living out a plan that he or he has arranged. It's just basically fate.
That's not what this is right here for a couple of reasons. One, you see David pleading for God to do things. So one, we got, you know, God responding to prayer, but more importantly, a lot of times something would happen in a Muslim's life over there and they would say, well, it's just fate, you know? And in the back of their minds, they're thinking that God was paying them back for something that they'd done. That God was, you know, there was God's evil intent in their lives to mess them up because of bad decisions they'd made. You know, the gospel gives you something that is just liberating on this regard is that I know that regardless of what is happening in my life, God is not punishing me for my sin.
You know how I know that? Because God has already poured out all the wrath for my sin on Jesus Christ. Therefore, anything that's happened in my life cannot be punishment because God can't punish twice for the same sin.
That would be unjust. So I know that no matter what's happening, God's not paying me back for something because God paid Jesus back for the things that I had done wrong. So when I, when in the gospel, I have believed that Jesus suffered in my place for my sin, I know that all that remains for me is goodness and mercy, not harshness and wrath.
So even in the midst of difficult situations that I find myself in the middle of, I know that God is working all things together for good. We'll be right back with the rest of our teaching on Summit Life with JD Greer in just a moment. But I wanted to quickly share a little bit about our brand new resource this month.
We want to take this opportunity to help you prepare your heart for Christmas. We're excited to offer a 25-day devotional for Advent called He Is Here. It covers much more than the birth story of Jesus. Most of the stories actually come from the Old Testament. And that's because what we celebrate at Christmas, God coming to earth, was God's plan all along like we're finding in our study of David that we just began. In each story, we see God interact with someone from the Bible. And it's obvious that meeting God changes everything for these people. And it can change everything for us too.
Give us a call at 866-335-5220, or go online to jdgreer.com and reserve your copy today. Listen, I'm not trying to minimize your pain. I'm not trying to say that, you know, God was the one doing it. I'm not trying to say any of that. I'm just trying to say that in the Gospel, you know that God has a loving purpose that He was and is pursuing in you. And then every movement in your life, good and bad, is working toward that purpose. Do you believe that? Do you believe that?
And can you patiently wait for it? God, sometimes we pray for relief and what God is doing is refining because His highest value in us is our trust and our satisfaction with Him and a possession of a character like His. And He often uses pain and struggle to produce that in us.
But He is always, in all things and at every moment, working for our good. You believe that? If you do believe it, then you won't take matters into your own hands.
And you're like, well, JD, yeah, it must be awesome to have your job, get up there and say a bunch of stuff, you know, when you don't have to live down here with us. Like, I don't have a real life too. And you think that, but you're like, you don't know what I'm going through.
Maybe I don't. But just listen to David for a minute. Verse four, my soul is in the midst of lions. I lie down in the midst of fiery beasts, the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. David's being chased by a rabid king who's trying to kill him. I feel like people were trying to devour me and every night he says, my dreams, they haunt me like hungry lions.
Yeah, I think David might know a little bit what you're going through. Verse five, be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth.
But what is that? What's David praying for there? For who to be exalted? God, write this word down.
Number three, selflessness. David's pray for relief. David prays for relief, but his primary prayer is for God to be exalted, whether in David's rescue or in his pain. What do you pray for in pain? You ever move beyond personal relief to God being exalted in your life? You ever move beyond relief to God's exaltation?
Nothing wrong in praying for relief, but you ever get beyond that where you say, God, even if I suffer, the point is you being exalted. This is one of the primary differences between David and Saul. If Saul's only concerned about personal exaltation, Saul thinks about his comfort and his name.
David knows it's not about him and his kingdom, so he's willing for his reputation to suffer and his body to ache if it will exalt God. Look at the next verse, verse seven. My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast, and I will sing and make melody, not whine and complain. Number four, write this word down, satisfaction.
Now, the more astute of you just said, wait a minute, those all start with S. Yes, I grew up Southern Baptist, and I can only get so far from my roots, I do have to alliterate every once in a while. Satisfaction, David says, my heart's locked in on you. You're my refuge, verse one. In the midst of a wilderness, in the midst of nothing happening, like I think it should, your promises, your comfort are enough for me.
Now, look, you can't miss us. Most important point, perhaps. That's the second time David used the word steadfast. This time he's talking about him being steadfast toward God. The first time he used the word steadfast, what was he talking about? God's feelings toward him. Listen to this. You cannot be steadfast toward God until you're confident he's steadfast toward you.
That's huge. Until you are confident that God's love is steadfast for you, you'll never be steadfast in your obedience toward him. The backbone of obedience is confidence in the steadfast love of God. If you are not confident in the goodness of God to you, that's where you get anxious, it's where you get tempted to sin, it's where you start to take revenge, it's where you start to compromise. All sin, Martin Luther said, begins with unbelief. All sin.
Take revenge. Got a Miroslav Volf, a Croatian whose people experienced some of the worst genocide in our century. Made this statement a few years ago at Princeton University and I think it was commencement address that he was given for graduation. He said, people often say that those who believe in God and those who believe in judgment will become very judgmental themselves because if you believe that God is not pleased with what somebody's doing, you'll become very violent and harsh and critical.
He said, it's exactly the opposite. He said, it's those people who believe in a God of judgment that don't feel the need to take judgment on themselves. He said, when my people were being slaughtered and after, even after it ended and I would just, everything gave me wanted to hate the people that had done so much to us. He said, knowing that there was a God who would one day give justice meant that I did not have to take that justice into myself and I could sit back and rest and be confident in God because God is the one who holds justice in his hands. And that gave me the resources that I hate the people that had done so much wrong.
That gave me the resources to even begin to love them. If you don't think that God's plan is good for you, then you're going to try to sample some goodness from outside of God's plan. It's only when you're confident in God's goodness that you'll rest and you'll wait on him. David says, God, all judgment is in your hands. I don't need to kill Saul. You got a purpose that you're going to fulfill my life and I'm confident in your ability to do it. You're my treasure and possession. I don't need glory and power. I want you to be exalted in the earth. I don't need to be because I've got you.
You're my possession. When you are confident, see, in the goodness of God's plan for you, you won't sample outside of it. And only when, only when you're confident in his steadfast love to you will you be steadfast toward him. I mean, imagine you were taking a friend out to eat. You're going to take him out to a super nice restaurant. You'd stop by a gas station on the way there and there. You see him in a gas station, you know, stocking up on granola bars and beef jerky and like, I'm taking you to the Angus barn. But they're just not confident that you're actually going to deliver. So they're, they're getting all this cheap food. You'd be like, no, I'm going to buy you the meal of a lifetime. Did you write that one down?
Angus barn right under the magnolia grill? Did you write that down? All right. Because they're not confident in your goodness to them, they're going to try to sample a little goodness along the way. See, confidence in God's steadfastness makes you steadfast. Four words, sovereignty, steadfast love, selfless, and a satisfaction. When you're tempted to take matters in your own hands and you're tempted to sin, you're failing at one of those four, always. You don't really believe God's sovereign. You aren't convinced of a steadfast love. You still think like Saul that this is all about you and self. You're not satisfied with God and his approval of you.
It's always goes back to those things. You see, you got a guy or a girl who's upset because other people aren't recognizing how awesome they are. They're really sensitive to criticism. They're sensitive to not being praised enough.
They're really sensitive to not being given the right opportunities and promotions. I was like that. Sometimes I am like that. When you feel like that, here's the question you need to ask yourself.
It's what I ask myself. Why is God's love and approval not enough for me? Why do I feel like I need everybody else's approval? Why is God's not enough for me? Because all of our problems go back to not understanding the gospel.
We either don't understand how God feels about us or we don't value it enough. Easy enough, right? Easy enough? Not so fast. One little point I want to point out here. Look at this.
Everybody's got lapses of faithfulness. Everybody. That's why we need community. Abigail speaks up in your small group. That's why we put you in the small group.
That's why we encourage you to get in there. You want to know how to know the will of God in situation? Listen, two things God's given you to know the will of God. One's the word of God.
One's the people of God. People come to me. They start talking about just the dumbest decision that they make.
And I look at them. I'm not making fun of any of you. We've had this conversation recently. I'm like, well, did you ask anybody about that before you made that decision? No, but I prayed about it. And I say this to them, and hopefully you won't think this is sacrilegious. I'm like, did you know that God is giving you something more reliable than prayer? The church. In fact, that's how God answers your prayer for wisdom is He gives you the church. You pray, and then you, after you pray, you go and ask counsel from godly people who help walk you through time so your faith doesn't laugh because if David's faith laughs, yours will too.
We've got ladies who are making decisions about their marriage and you're doing it all by yourself because the only people you're talking to your marriage about are people who don't know the word of God at all. And they're giving you worldly wisdom and you're going to get worldly results. All right, here's the conclusion. Here's conclusion. Let me bring this back to the beginning. You find yourself in a situation where things are not exactly like you think it should be. You're not being treated right. Your ministry is not taking off. You're not relationally where you want to be. What do you do?
Take matters into your own hands, revenge, compromise, get ahead of God, or do you trust Him? Y'all, this is it. This is the test of your life.
This is it. It really is. Some of you are on a precipice between disaster and blessing. You want to be out of a situation right now so badly and you're about to compromise. You don't want to be single.
You're not happy with your marriage. You're struggling. Don't do it. Don't do it. Do it God's way, God's time. You'll get God's blessing.
Trust Him and wait on it. And the resources to do this are in the steadfast love of Christ. They always are, which is why the most important element of this story is that you see how it points to Christ. Again, we do this every week. Who are you in the story? You, David. David reminds you of you.
Jesus is David. We're more like Saul. We're the ones who thought it was all about us. We're the ones who didn't trust God.
We're the ones who took control of our lives and lived with jealousy. David didn't kill Saul even though he had the chance to and frankly deserved to kill Saul. Jesus didn't kill us when he had the right to. David showed Saul grace.
Jesus showed us grace. David here turns down a shortcut to the throne that he would have had by killing Saul. Do you know Jesus was offered a shortcut to the throne too? In the temptation of Christ, it says that Satan offered him a shortcut to the throne and if Jesus had taken him up on it, he would have sat on the throne.
But guess what? All of us would have died and gone to hell because Jesus wouldn't have died for our sins. So Jesus could have avoided death and gotten the throne, but because he chose death and turned his back on the throne temporarily, we got to live. David let Saul live so that David could get to God's throne and God's way. Jesus let us live. Jesus died.
He turned his back on his right to the throne and because he did that, we can live. All this is about Jesus, all of it. When you believe that and you receive Jesus as your savior, you receive the strength to wait on God and trust him with your life. Discovering God's purpose for you like David did starts with receiving Jesus.
It's the point of the whole Bible. Jesus is the king you're looking for. He's got the satisfying steadfast love that your heart craves. Have you received that power? The power to wait patiently on God? It only comes through complete surrender to the savior who died for you. You're listening to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D.
Greer. J.D., we've just begun your series on King David called Search for a King. Can you tell us a little bit more about what this series is all about? Yeah, King David is one of the most prominent characters in the Old Testament, the greatest king in Israel's history, one of the people that if you've studied anything about the Bible, you know, you know, great King David. In this series, you're going to see that even though David was the ideal king in some one sense, his story is going to be punctuated at various points with a question mark because he's going to fail in some ways that we needed him not to fail.
And what you're going to see through this is that his life is actually pointing to another king. So our prayer is that through this study of the life of David, we would learn to see that Jesus is the ultimate king that we've been searching for, which is why going into this holiday season, one of the things we wanted to provide is a 25 day Advent guide that shows how that great son of David, Jesus, the king, is ultimately the savior and the king that you've been searching for. I think you'll really enjoy it. I think you'll want to pass it to some people in your life so you can reach out to us today. Go to jdgreer.com and get yours so that you have it by December 1st and you're ready to let this guide you through the Advent season in a way that not only will deepen your relationship with God but also enrich your holiday season.
So I think you'll like it. Yes, let us send you this timely resource now. Ask for He is Here 25 Devotions for Advent when you give a donation today of $35 or more. Just call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.
Or you can give easily online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitovich. Have you ever felt distant from God even when you're going to church and doing all the right things? Maybe you even wonder whether or not you're saved. Tomorrow, Pastor JD addresses that feeling and describes how you can truly know where you stand with God. Be sure to listen Wednesday to Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.
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